Beast Wars Transmetal Terrorsaur

I'm not sure exactly what made me want to get this guy. I guess I was looking through my collection and realized I don't have many TM toys. I don't know. This mold is also features in the Botcon comic, 'The Wreckers' as TM Fractyl, and so I decided it was time to pick myself up one. For a reasonable price of course. I found a slightly used one on eBay (actually it was displayed, and came with the card, bubble still halfway attached) for $5 and now here he is. I actually bid on a TM Airazor from the same guy (also mint out of card) but someone outbid me by a long shot and it ended up going for $12. Yeesh, I can get a sealed one for less.

Anywho, Terrorsaur is one of the TMs not featured in the show (though he was becoming a TM, he just fell in a lava pit and died a quiet death with Scorponok), but after playing with this toy a bit I kinda wish he hadn't died when he did.

Beast mode is that of a Pterodactyl or Pteranodon (I'm a bit rusty on my Dinosaurs, but I believe Terrorsaur is a Pteranodon, since Pterodactyl's are rather tiny, but I could be wrong) and it's much more accurate than his original form, and with no undercarriage to boot. Okay, that's a lie, he has a little in his robot mode legs, but they fold up and peg in so nice you hardly notice (unlike the original).

Wing articulation is lacking a bit, I think. He can flap them down and they rotate on a ball joint, but he can't move them up. Also to make it weirder, the ball joint is attached to a hinge joint that rotates needlessly down. A few changes and this could have been changed to swing up and I wouldn't be writing this paragraph.

Also, with some fiddling, you can get a pretty decent 'standing with wings wrapped up' pose going, though you have to unpeg his legs and sometimes they flop down a bit. His neck also only has one joint in it, so he looks sorta hunch backed. Mind you, none of this is complaining, the beast mode of this toy alone is worlds better than both modes of the first Terrorsaur toy.

As with all Transmetals, Terrorsaur has a vehicle mode. Well, sorta. The instructions, which are horribly inaccurate and not very helpful, say you only need to open up his butt (he has a rocket engine ass like Inferno) and swing some purple thingies on his wings forward (sorta like those attack dealies on the first Airazor toy). Once that's done you essentially have a Terrorsaur with some things jutting out of his wings and an open butt. Whee.

But, fear not, citizens! I have a remedy for the crappy vehicle mode blues. Simply push the maroon wings until they're parallel to his body, and straighten his lower arms so they're parallel as well. I think he looks a lot cooler like this, and it gives more of a feel of a vehicle mode, rather than a Pteranodon with some extra parts jutting out. Another pose I like is if you do what I said above, and then swing the entire arm/wing piece around 180 degrees and fold up the head, and also reposition the maroon blades to just out straight. It's a nifty star cruiser or something. I dunno, play around with it, this is a very flexible toy, lots of fun.

Transformation isn't too tough, though the first time I needed to check the directions, especially the way his beast head folds up into his chest and locks everything into place. Pretty neat. Your best bet with this part is to transform him to robot mode so that the beast head sorta sticks out of his stomach (or crotch, depending on how you look at it and how sick you are) and then push the head into his body.

The end result is pretty cool and tough looking. His head looks to be a remold of the originals, but with more organic elements to it sorta. He also has some huge ares. I think Terrorsaur can finally stand up to Megatron since he's not a basic anymore, and also looks to be a lot stronger. Of course, he's really at the bottom of a lava pit, but that's okay.

The blades on his arms, which are the wings in beast mode, can be detached and held in his hands for some pretty neat looking, if a bit bloated, scythe weapons. The rub symbol on mine seems to be perpetually stuck in heated mode, but that may be because it's kinda hot in my house.

Terry's feet, I think, are also worth addressing. The bottom of each foot is a rather large, flat rocket booster. Pretty neat. Also his toes and ankle spurs are fairly stiff, so he can support a variety of poses (something TM Rattrap can't say). Also you can use his wings for extra support, if need be. And of course his rocket backpack still opens, so with all that jetpower he can probably fly around pretty fast. You know, if he wasn't dead.

All in all, a very flexible and fun toy, though I would have liked some better arm articulation (the aforementioned hindered ball joint and the pointless hinge, plus the elbows are only hinges, and limited hinges at that), all in all everything is quite nice. Well worth the $5 I paid, and I'd wager to say paying $15 for him wouldn't seem like a rip off. Also there's a new Dinobots (Beast Machines) version with a different color scheme, so you should really get this toy if you don't have an incarnation of it already, it's quite nice.